NEWS

"I would not have gotten into this race if I did not think I could win it," says Rob Zerban, 44, a former Kenosha County Board member who has run successful catering businesses. Yet his candidacy is described with words like "long shot" and "uphill battle" because he's facing Republican incumbent Paul Ryan, who's simultaneously also running for vice president. >More

Planning to meet your study group at the UW Law School on Thursday? Hoping to go to office hours at Science Hall? Better make other plans, because much of the campus will be in lockdown by then in preparation for President Barack Obama's visit to Bascom Hill. >More

Dozens of union members in green AFSCME and red MTI shirts watched while the 14 present members of the Madison Common Council voted unanimously Thursday afternoon in a special session to approve new labor contracts with city employees. "We're here as MTI to support AFSCME," said Amy Turkowski. "Their fight is our fight." >More

A Dane County judge who struck down parts of Act 10, the state's law weakening collective bargaining for some public workers, has drawn a spate of letters and phone messages expressing outrage in colorful, at times vitriolic language. "You are no more than a cheap political hack for the Marxist Democratic Party," declares one email sent to Circuit Court Judge Juan B. Colas by someone using a fake name. >More

Jonathan Dedering has been doing doors in District 78 in his bid to replace incumbent state Rep. Brett Hulsey (D-Madison), who recently made headlines for pleading no contest to a disorderly conduct charge. Dedering says residents don't talk much about that incident, but they do bring up the flap over endorsements that occurred during Hulsey's inaugural run for the Assembly in 2010. >More

Last Friday about 13 Capitol protesters piled into a courtroom at the Public Safety Building for their initial appearances before Dane County Circuit Court Commissioner Todd Meurer. Cited for holding signs at the state Capitol, they all pleaded not guilty and asked for jury trials. >More

Ald. Sue Ellingson is in a tight spot. The Greenbush Neighborhood Association is fiercely opposed to plans to redevelop the land that has for decades housed the Ideal Body Shop at 502 S. Park St. Ellingson backs the project and says she really doesn't understand the main point of contention: "why four stories is okay on Park Street but five stories is not." >More

When it comes to the annual flu shot, are you in the better-safe-than-sorry camp or of the "aches and chills build character" persuasion? Either way, you should be interested in a local company that's working to make a seasonal influenza vaccine that you'd possibly not need to take every year, and that might not hurt a bit. >More

President Obama told a cheering crowd of 18,000 Wisconsinites at the Summerfest grounds in Milwaukee on Saturday: "We can't move forward when our leaders write off half the nation, calling them a bunch of victims." When the crowd began to boo, Obama told them, "Don't boo, vote!" >More